Carlos Santana Was Out By Six Feet, Except That Umpire Jim Wolf Is Legally Blind

Most of the time, umpiring is really easy, like this play from last night's Reds-Indians game. Joey Votto scoops up the grounder on the first base side and throws it to shortstop Zach Cozart, who's covering second. Carlos Santana basically gives up on sliding into the base, because he recognizes, being a baseball player of sound mind and body, that he is so incredibly out and nothing could possibly overturn such an obvious ruling. Ah, but he forgot that Jim Wolf was umpiring second base last night and that Jim Wolf apparently suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury in between innings, affecting the more sensitive areas of his ocular photoreceptors. Of course, Baker came out of the dugout and gave it the ol' Dusty Effort, but "Blind Jim" Wolf didn't budge from his decision.

Even the announcing crew, at first, assumed that Cozart must've dropped the ball, even when no such droppage actually happened. They had to try and invent something to explain this kind of stupid. Never a good sign.

[h/t Jeff Sullivan]